Patricia Petibon AMOUREUSES Mozart / Haydn / Gluck

Barbarina and Susanna, Armida and Zaide, Giunia and Iphigénie: these complex portraits of several different kinds of women provide the theme for French soprano Patricia Petibon’s debut recital for Deutsche Grammophon. Above all, however, they are portraits of women in love. The range of emotions and situations could hardly be greater, extending from the first innocent thrill of love to despair and feminine guile to the end of love, attended by anger and even hatred. “It’s a musical and vocal approach”, she explains, “but also a theatrical and dramaturgical one. Amoureuses depicts various characters who may in fact represent no more than facets of a single figure. On the one hand, we have Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro, a character of great purity who could even be described as angelic, while on the other hand we have the Queen of Night in Die Zauberflöte, a mature woman who once knew love but who has now lost her way and who loves only herself and power.” It goes without saying that such contrasts, emotions and passions demand a response that goes far beyond mere beautiful singing. Patricia Petibon uses vocal colours and shadings, risking extremes of expression and emotion and exploiting her voice’s fullest potential in order to reveal the countless facets of these roles. “If the text demands a certain sharpness, harshness or roughness, then vocally, too, I choose to go down this particular path. What I do not want is aesthetic homogeneity and superficial beauty”, she describes her approach to the music. She owes this search for the artistic truth to two great conductors above all. “I come from two different schools: those of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and William Christie; both have strongly influenced me and have taught me to interpret music in my own, highly distinctive way and to be true to myself and to others.” (Excerpts from the booklet text accompanying the album)